TEHRAN: Iranian state television's main news programme has introduced a new segment aimed at offering "fashion" guidance at a time when women in the capital are being whisked off the streets for wearing skimpy dresses.

The three-minute segment "What is Fashion?" is a series of interviews with Tehran residents, clerics and "experts" aimed at defining what can and cannot be worn. The young moderator wearing a black chador interviews people in the street, asking them: "Do you know what fashion is?"

A young man, sitting in his car with friends, answers: "Fashion is one of the ways used to Westernize our youth. ...It is just because our youth are not self-confident."

To booming music, the camera pans on shop windows full of brightly coloured clothes and accessories with foreign labels such as Nike, Adidas and Chanel, then on young people in the streets, interspersed with footage from fashion shows.

An expert then appears - not a fashion designer, but a mullah. "Fashion does not confront tradition," he says. "It is rooted in history. It is not bad at all, it is even necessary for life."

Amid signs of a mounting crackdown to enforce the Islamic republic's dress code, the chief of police this week warned women not to dress like "models". For the past several months police have been carrying out a series of operations across the capital Tehran, rounding up hundreds of young women sporting flimsy headscarves, three-quarter-length trousers and shape-revealing coats.

Witnesses said the detainees - picked up in parks, fast food restaurants or from sidewalks - have been briefly hauled into police stations and subjected to lessons on morality before being freed.

Women ignoring the Islamic dress code can be jailed for up to two months or fined between 50,000 and 500,000 rials (six and 60 dollars). On the "fashion" segment, a young man with long hair tells the interviewer: "Unfortunately, as soon as a dress or something becomes fashionable in foreign countries, it becomes popular here. I believe, though, that you should wear what looks good on you."

A middle-aged man says to the camera: "Bad fashion is what is imitated by people who neglect their own roots and origins." The segment shows footage of young women wearing skimpy, bright-coloured clothes and veils that do not completely cover their hair.

Then a woman wearing a regulation headscarf says: "Bad fashion causes decadence, it does not go anywhere, it just causes disorientation." A psychologist comes on the programme, who notes "the important need of youths to attract attention."

Another cleric says: "Fashion as something for staying up to date is definitely good. The thing is that everyone who gives away his own fashion and takes others' fashion is a narrow-minded person." -AFP